Isaiah 25: 6-10a
All Saints Sunday, November 3, 2019
Plymouth Congregational Church, UCC
The Rev. Jane Anne Ferguson
 
Isaiah 25:6-9
25:6 On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear.
25:7 And he will destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations; he will swallow up death forever.
25:8 Then the Lord GOD will wipe away the tears from all faces, and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the LORD has spoken.
25:9 It will be said on that day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, so that he might save us. This is the LORD for whom we have waited; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.
25:10a For the hand of the LORD will rest on this mountain.

The poetic prophecy of Isaiah is set against the backdrop of the Hebrew peoples’ physical and spiritual devastation when a foreign empire conquers their country and destroys their city, Jerusalem. Families are pulled apart as captives are taken into slavery in exile. Their homes are torn down around them. There is death all around. It seemed as if God had abandoned them! Death had cast a shroud over the whole people. If images from recent news of refugee camps and the devastation of Middle Eastern cities are coming to your mind, then you are getting the situation of God’s people in this text.

Death is an “active force of negativity that moves to counter and cancel and prevent well-being,” writes Old Testament scholar, Walter Brueggemann.[i] Death, in its many forms, leaves us feeling diminished and separated from God. Grief after death is not a one time visitor....it’s thread runs through our lives in many ways. As a chaplain friend of mine says, “There are so many little deaths in life – dying is just one of them.”

We most certainly experience the shroud of death Isaiah speaks of when our loved ones die. Some deaths are just way before their time and come with tragic circumstances. And even when the death of a loved one has been peaceful and comes naturally at the end of a vital, productive life we can still feel the devastation of loneliness and abandonment.  We grieve many other losses in life..... job loss – relationship loss – loss of meaning in the midst of despair and depression – loss of community in moving across the country – the loss of a beloved pet. We grieve when we hear the news of violence against other human beings – gun violence, domestic violence, the violence of prejudice and injustices of all kinds, the violence of war. We grieve when we hear of and experience  ecological violence against God’s creation. And we often feel helpless in the midst of grief, disgraced that we cannot lift ourselves up from the mire, that we cannot change the circumstances that caused us or others to grieve. We feel alone.

In all these experiences our hearts, our souls, long for companions in community and in the presence of God. We need those who will walk beside us, following our lead as we move through the sorrow, the anger, the numbness, the loneliness. We need companions without judgment, without time frames, or fix-it solutions to cheer us up.  We need companions who patiently walk with us toward the hope of transformation. The best gift we can give someone in grief is simply being a companion.
The poet, Patricia McKernon Runkle beautifully expresses this kind of companioning in her poem “When You Meet Someone Deep in Grief.”
 
Slip off your needs
and set them by the door.
 
Enter barefoot
this darkened chapel
 
hollowed by loss
hallowed by sorrow
 
its gray stone walls
and floor.
 
You, congregation
of one
 
are here to listen
not to sing.
 
Kneel in the back pew.
Make no sound,
 
let the candles
speak. [ii]
 
In other words, just be. You do not have to fix. Listen. Or simply sit in silence with the one in grief. Your presence is the balm, the greatest “fix” you can offer.

The prophet Isaiah proclaims that our companioning God invites us to sit and be at God’s table of hope and abundance in the midst of grief and loss – in the midst of the many little dyings, as well as the big ones, in the midst of fear and devastation. At God’s table we are transformed by God’s companioning. God feeds us with love in a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines – or here in Fort Collins, maybe we should say, well-brewed beer. The prophet declares that God will destroy the shroud, the sheet of deep grief that is spread over all nations; God will swallow up death forever and will wipe away the tears from all faces. I believe that in the death and resurrection of Jesus who is now the Christ, the redeeming presence of God with us, death was swallowed up forever in an ultimate and cosmic way that is both mystery and revelation. And we can trust this mystery because of the new life that it reveals.

Friends, here in this community of God’s saints we endeavor to companion one another on the journey of life’s mystery that extends through and beyond physical death. God is our ever-present companion drawing us all together. As companioning community we are tangible evidence of the presence of God in all our lives.

You have been and continue to be companions of your pastors as we continue to walk through the grief of my son’s death and through the grief of Hal’s cancer diagnosis and treatment. You are with us in tangible and intangible ways, in prayers, in the mountains of cards you have sent. You are with us in the prayer flags that you made for me after Colin’s death. They hung on our back fence for at least nine months until I noticed early this summer that they were disappearing. I finally realized those darn squirrels were taking them. Irritated I went out to salvage what was left, muttering to myself, “Those were MY prayer flags!”

Then later that day Hal took me to our deck and pointed up. There in a very large, very tall, evergreen in our neighbor’s yard, way at the top of the tree, was a very colorful squirrel’s nest, made with prayer flags. They had been “transformed!” So they still companion me....and I hear Colin’s laughter each time I look at them. They assure me of God’s companioning presence that comes through you and through the beauty and surprise of nature.

The words of Isaiah assure us that God’s hope is as abundant as a great feast.  And that the shroud of death is not the ultimate future. God’s life is the ultimate future. God’s presence offers transformation because God is the ultimate companion in the many deaths of our lives. God comes into the darkened chapel of our souls and sits with us as a congregation of one, listening to our grief. God sends us to one another to listen as companions in grief. And through our companioning we are transformed in our individual grief as well as in our community. Transformed to companion those here in Fort Collins, in northern Colorado, in our country and around the world who suffer the death-dealing forces violence, prejudice and injustice.

Even in the very real ache of grief we can say with the prophet and with conviction, God will swallow up death forever.  God will wipe away all tears and take away the shroud of disgrace that covers the earth through human violence and greed. Don’t you want to participate with this companioning God in this miraculous transformation? The invitation is open as we companion one another through God’s love.

© The Rev. Jane Anne Ferguson, 2019.  All rights reserved. Permission is granted to reprint Patricia McKernon Runkle's poem from her website: griefscompass.com. 

[i] Walter Bruggemann, Isaiah 1 -39, (Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville, KY: 1998, 199).

[ii] Patricia McKernon Runkle, “When You Meet Someone Deep in Grief”.  The is poem is reprinted here with the permission of the poet. You can discover more about Patricia McKernon Runkle at her website, www.griefscompass.com and on Good Reads. Her book on her own grief journey after her brother’s death is titled, Grief’s Compass; Walking the Wilderness with Emily Dickinson.

​Luke 15.1-10
Plymouth Congregational Church, UCC
Fort Collins, CO
The Reverend Jane Anne Ferguson

​1 Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him.
2 And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying,
"This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them." 

3 So he told them this parable:
4 "Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them,
does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness
​and go after the one that is lost until he finds it?
5 When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices.
6 And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors,
saying to them, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.'
7 Just so, I tell you,
there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents
than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance. 

8 "Or what woman having ten silver coins,
if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp,
sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it?
9 When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors,
saying, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.'
10 Just so, I tell you,
there is joy in the presence of the angels of God
over one sinner who repents." 

What was the last thing that you lost? Mine was my keys! This week. Replaced but the originals not yet found. I am still searching. Losing something. Getting lost .... really vulnerable feeling. We all hate to be lost! It's very uncomfortable. We don’t like to lose things. We really don’t like to lose our way, literally or metaphorically. Even with Google maps it still happens. How many of you really don’t like to ask for directions when you are lost? Come on, be honest! Its hard to be lost!

Lost .... a bad, gut wrenching, sometimes guilt producing, feeling. For human beings since time immemorial. Jesus knew that people hate to be, to feel lost. It’s a primal fear. Our text today gives us two of Jesus’ most familiar stories and you might know that they are the first two in a trilogy. The third being the story of the prodigal, or lost, son who returns home to a joyous father and a resentful elder brother. 

As our passage opens, Jesus is gaining notoriety for his stories, his teachings, his healing. And not with the popular people in town, but with the sinners and tax collectors. The tax collectors were those who made their living collecting taxes for the Roman empire and adding a bit (or more) of interest to the top for themselves. They made their living by raising taxes on the middle class and poor. And it was condoned by the government. And sinners? They could be any number of folks. Technically “a sinner” in the theological parlance of New Testament theology is one who is separated from God, one who “misses the mark” of relationship with God in someway.  In view of the purity laws of the Pharisees, sinners were most likely those on the margins of society....from prostitutes to thieves to beggars or those who simply did not or more likely could not keep all the purity laws because of income or illness. They could be the poor, the lame, the lepers, the mentally and physically ill. Outcasts for whatever reason. Something made them ritually impure and so separated from God in the eyes of the religious establishment. Jesus was welcoming “sinners” and eating with them. They were seeking him out. Instead of scolding them for impure living he welcomed them! 

So the religious elite, the keepers of the purity laws grumbled. Complained. Pointed fingers. Folded arms and pursed lips. They were scandalized and they were jealous. Crowds did not come to hear them teach in the local synagogue the way they flocked to hear this rebellious rabbi, Jesus. They were mad because Jesus welcomed all the people, not just the people who kept the religious laws. I suspect Jesus even made an effort to welcome the scribes and Pharisees but they didn’t want to hear it. And when he heard his religious brethren grumbling and saw their sour faces, he tells them stories about being lost. 

Because Jesus knows that everyone knows what it is to be lost or to have lost something or someone dear to them. He knows that the desperation of being lost is universal. In his two parables the shepherd and the peasant woman lose something of great economic and maybe sentimental value. Something that  affected their livelihood. A sheep and a coin that was probably a drachma, worth the price of a sheep or a fifth the price of an ox. And in each story the shepherd and the woman goes to great lengths to find what is lost. There is story hyperbole going on here that makes a point we could almost miss. 

Think about this....the shepherd leaves the 99 sheep in the wilderness to go and find the one. Doesn’t leave them in their nice safe fold all tucked in at home, but in the wilderness. This says to me that as soon as he notices the one is gone he goes in search. That’s how precious each sheep is. Not waiting to secure they others....boom...where is my lost sheep? Gotta find my sheep! And when the sheep is found he calls together his friends and neighbors to celebrate. You might think he would just want to crawl in bed exhausted but no he has a party! And the woman cleans her house in a way she never has to find where that coin has gone, to discover what crack it has fallen into. She lights the lamp with precious, expensive oil to find this precious coin. And when she finds it she, too, throws a party! Which may have cost a lot more than the coin was worth. Both of these people have extravagant celebrations to celebrate that the lost is found. And Jesus says “there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance... there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents." That would be one sinner, one person, who is no longer separated from the love of God....one person who now knows that God seeks and welcomes and loves them. 

And isn’t that what we all want to know ... that we are sought after, welcomed and loved. All the good works that we want to do as followers of Jesus, do not make us the seekers. God is the seeker. God is the shepherd in the wilderness seeking, the woman cleaning house with a lighted lamp and seeking. God pursues us for we are the precious things, like the sheep and the coin. And we do not have to do a long enough list of good things  or live in certain ways so that God will find us. God seeks and finds us! And then we join God’s party!

I speak with people all the time who are seeking faith, who worry they have lost their faith, who don’t know if they ever had a faith. And I confess that I have those times myself. I count myself humbly as one of the sinners who wonders away from God, is separated, loses the lifeline, feels completely lost and desperately in despair. Seeking love in materialism or the escape of entertainment. My friends, “what is it to “lose faith,” but to lose the conviction that one has been found, to begin to wonder if one is sought at all?” And to be completely in the dark about what to do....to not know how to seek. Yet with God our seeking is simply the willingness to be found. The openness of heart and mind. The willingness to throw up our hands and say, “I can’t find myself! Please find me!” The willingness to sit waiting in the dark.

That’s the difference between two groups of folks listening to Jesus, the sinners and the Pharisees. Pharisees are not willing to be found. And they do not join the party where all are welcomed into relationship with God! So I wonder who are really the lost ones in Jesus’ parables.

I’d rather be a sinner. I’d rather be willing to be found. I’d rather go to the party! 

So I found this crazy video on Facebook of all places and it spoke to me about the extremes God will go to just to find us. 

God will go this far, my friends. We are not really lost because we are sought. 

By the continually seeking God of love. The shepherd, the house cleaning woman. Let’s have a party!

Amen. 

©The Reverend Jane Anne Ferguson, 2019 and beyond. May be reprinted outside Plymouth Congregational Church, UCC, by permission only.